We are approaching the 20th Anniversary of Black Monday on the Stock Markets

I came across an article on the Wall Street Journal which gives a great insight into Black Monday. For those of us newer to the stock markets and investing, Black Monday occurred on Monday October 19th, 1987. The Dow Jones plummeted 22.6% on that day – taking everyone by surprise and sparking massive fear and uncertainty.

Let me put that into perspective – The TSX would have to drop by 3,216 points tomorrow to match the performance of Black Monday! Remember, only just 2 months ago we had a huge panic about the TSX dropping 400 points in one day (it was actually about 600 points intraday, but gained 200 late afternoon) on August 24, 2007. If that happened on 8 consecutive days it would only then begin to match the single day drop of Black Monday…

There is a poll about Black Monday on the TradersBlog , asking "Black Monday – Can It Happen Again This Week?" I am amazed how divided traders are. Half say that there is nothing to worry about, the other half are sure that the markets will have a crash repeat performance. The poll results are really interesting. You can see it at http://club.ino.com/trading/?poll

PreetOctober 17th, 2007 08:17 PM

Thanks for pointing us to that poll Lindsay! It IS interesting to see how many people associate investing with numerology and the sort. So according to half the people who voted, there will be a repeat drop of over 20% THIS FRIDAY.

That is certainly the funniest thing I’ve seen all day – and it’s been a whacky day for me in the office! :)

These must be the same people who call into psychic hot-lines and never wonder why the tele-psychics didn’t call THEM in the first place… lol